I haven't had much good to say about films shot in Canada recently, but this is the exception. I hope race relations in Nova Scotia aren't this bad, but the film made me believe each of the characters were real. They all had a depth to them, and as others have mentioned, were all acted very well. It's true that some of this territory has been covered before, but I think it's safe to say nobody saw this particular ending coming quite the way it happened. My last comment is about the boxing scene, which I felt was unique in conveying the impacts of some of the blows. Other recent boxing movies have not had the same effect, for me. I look forward to more films of this calibre.

This was an average sort of movie. It didn't leave any lasting impressions despite an interesting premise and gritty storyline. Poor Boy's Game is a movie built around a boxing match, but its most powerful scenes involve the ongoing human drama. I still found this a bit all over the place, the characters underdeveloped and their motivation vague.

The story is ultimately about forgiveness and redemption following Donnie (Rossif Sutherland) who has just been released from prison after serving 10 a ten year sentence for beating a man so badly he suffered permanent mental disability. Upon his release he goes back to his old crew of familiar (Canadian faces) hard drinking racist A--holes for the most part and then through guilt I suppose agrees to enter into a boxing grudge match that he knows will end either in his loss or death.

The plot gets strange then as Danny Glover agrees to help train Donnie even though he is the man responsible for beating his son. This all culminates into some kind of racial war; churches burn, people are killed in revenge killings and then the big showdown takes place in the ring. The boxing isn't great here either, kinda cheesy as is the ending where both boxers have to work together in the ring.

There is a big Canadian cast attached to this, lots of actors I recognized from assorted TV shows and then Danny Glover. Weird. It has also been filmed and takes place in Halifax but had a feel of one of those movies filmed in Canada but meant to take place in America. 12/1/15

There's a 90 per cent chance that a movie filmed in Canada will pretend that it is taking place in the U.S., as a crass attempt to garner more box office or rental bucks. If there are black people in the film, the odds of this sort of cultural counterfeiting goes up to 95 per cent. Therefore, I gave POOR BOYS GAME a rating bonus point for honesty, as it was set where (except for the Hamilton, ON, Canada sound stage scenes) it was actually filmed. Its portrayal of poor white racist Canadians, racial brawls, and chip-on-the-shoulder minorities was very convincing, and the DVD "bonus" musical video "Africville" (performed by Black Union) about the 121-year-old Campbell Road\Seaview black section of Halifax, including the United Baptist Church, which was bull-dozed by Canadian rough riders in the middle of the night in 1969 is a rap lament which ranks up there with anything by Woody Guthrie or Joan Baez as far as protest songs go.